Day: January 23, 2006

Boycott Sony blog goes quiet, for now

Sony Boycott Blog: Farewell, for now. I think it’s time to move into new challenges: like, having raised awareness of the dangers of DRM, how do we act to keep DRM free music alive? I will be embracing those issues in my new DRM category here on the blog and look forward to getting your ideas and input.

On a technical note, does anyone know how to prevent new comments from being added to a WordPress site while still allowing old comments to be displayed? Turning comments off on a post appears to delete all the post’s comments.

And, speaking of DRM awareness, check out this piece on David Byrne’s blog about DRM:

Happy New Year. Don’t Buy CDs from the Big 5.

CDs from the big five run the risk of damaging your computer, opening you up to security risks, and you can’t rip the music onto your iPod. Stop buying CDs now. At least until they guarantee us that they will never try this sh*t again.

O.K., I’m exaggerating, but if I need to carry around a list to know which CDs I can safely buy it’s getting out of control.

Ensemble Robot!!!!!

Very cool. One of my favorite former wine store clerks and MIT grads, Christine Southworth, is branching out from her gamelan-inspired composition to writing new works for new instruments. Specifically, she has an upcoming concert with a new group, Ensemble Robot, at the Museum of Science on Wednesday. Featuring “an 8-foot tall double-helix-shaped xylophone played by electromagnetic hammers,” “a flower-like instrument that opens and closes, with small, motor-powered fans to pluck strings,” and “a large tetrahedron of air pistons, controlled by compressed air“ that plays organ pipes as it opens and closes. Rawk!!

Alive and kicking

It surprises me a little that the worst travel experience I had in the last week might just be the drive into work. It took about 2 hours to make a 40 minute drive from our place in Arlington into the office, thanks to a snowstorm whose peak activity was during the morning rush hour and which is still continuing, albeit less fiercely, now. (Confidential to Mother Nature: Yes, you have a sense of humor, we get it. Now knock it off.)

The day at Ft. Lauderdale was constructive and the flight home uneventful. I’m awfully glad to be back in one piece now, and to have enough leisure to finish submitting my expenses.

—Speaking of which, am I the last person to figure out that you can go with an e-ticket number directly to an airline’s website and it will provide a printable receipt? I went through a fair amount of hell reconstructing my final receipts from credit card statements when I went to Germany last fall; it appears that on at least one airline, Northwest, the process can be much simmpler.